The terrorist attacks on September 11th shocked the United States and showed American citizens just how vulnerable we are to acts of terror. We wanted revenge and rightly so, so we demanded our government respond to these terrorist immediately.  But the form of revenge we got is a far cry from what the American people truly deserved.  Rather then taking the time to conscientiously understand why we were attacked, we were immediately told that we were attacked by terrorists who hated freedom, and that was all she wrote. What the American people would endure in the coming months and years would be a direct attack on individual liberty in the name of safety.

Think back to the months after 9/11:  Remember the color codes the government displayed to show us the terror threat level? Media outlets displayed the government’s threat levels of yellow, orange, and the highest of red which warned us of extreme caution -- as if a code red would stop you from doing normal daily routines such as going to work, taking the kids to soccer practice, or going to the grocery store because a terrorist may indeed be hiding in aisle eight of your neighborhood Giant Food store. However, this form of fear-mongering worked well with the public; it made us feel as though the government was being proactive in stopping another horrifying terrorist attack.

The Bush Administration also made sweeping changes in preventing another terrorist attack in one of the most obvious and reasonable places, the airport. The Transportation Security Administration was created of the November 2001 and was later moved as an agency of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. This proactive approach from the government, like the color coded terror threat levels, showed the American people that our government was making an effort to stop terrorism. However, the TSA became an agency that directly attacks individual liberty and the right to privacy in the name of safety. Since its creation in 2001, the TSA has insulted the American people by forcing them to go through “nude scanners” which show an electronic image of a passenger’s body. The TSA also forces pat downs of the private parts of Americans ranging from children to senior citizens. Usually this is a crime called sexual assault, but if the TSA does it, it’s perfectly legal.

It is important to note that the TSA has never caught a terrorist since its creation 10 years ago. On top of their inefficiency, the TSA has a mind-blowing yearly budget of roughly $8.1 billion. This is government waste at its finest.